DHS Says Self-Deportation Numbers Hit 72,000

The Department of Homeland (DHS) shared that nearly 35,000 illegal aliens chose to go home through the no-penalty exit of “voluntary departure” last year.

Data from the Department of Justice (DOJ) shows that in “fiscal year 2025, more than 34,707 people nationwide were granted voluntary departure,” representing a fourfold increase from the “8,663 the year before,” NBC10 News reported.

Additionally, a document that was “shared internally within DHS and reviewed by CNN” revealed that as of March 2026, roughly 72,000 illegal migrants had chosen to self-deport under the Trump administration. Out of this number, roughly 37,281 migrants who agreed to voluntary deportation “were already” in the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

CNN also reported that a “sworn statement of an executive from Salus Worldwide Solutions” revealed that as of the beginning of December 2025, the Trump administration “had authorized nearly 35,000 stipends to individuals who had registered as self-deported”:

As of December 1, the government had authorized nearly 35,000 stipends to individuals who had registered as self-deported, although only 17,406 had been completed at the time, according to the sworn statement of an executive from Salus Worldwide Solutions, which holds a three-year contract to run Project Homecoming.

A senior official for the Department of Homeland Security offered similar numbers in a separate sworn statement that month. In addition to more than 38,380 who had voluntarily left the US under the program, nearly 28,600 others were in “various stages awaiting departure,” said Benjamine Huffman in his capacity as acting undersecretary for management at DHS.

In a post on X, DHS shared a video from NBC10 News, which highlighted how “tens of thousands more” illegal migrants have used the app through Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to return to their home countries.

“The number of illegal aliens wisely choosing to use CBP Home is skyrocketing,” DHS wrote. “If you are in our nation illegally, download the app NOW to get a free flight home PLUS a $2600 exit bonus.”

NBC10 News spoke with a family who “settled in the South Jersey area” after illegally entering the U.S. in 2022. The father, Luis, was arrested in December and “sent to an immigration detention center in Mississippi”:

The family, whose names we are withholding because of their undocumented status, settled in the South Jersey area. They said they obtained work permits while they sought asylum through immigration court. Luis worked as a butcher at a local grocery store and his wife at a local restaurant.

In late December, Luis took a different route to work in hopes of avoiding the ICE agents he had previously encountered on Federal Street in Camden. But as he was two blocks away from the grocery store, ICE officers pulled him onto a van and arrested him.

He was sent to an immigration detention center in Mississippi.

Luis’s wife expressed that her husband “needs to go back to his country,” adding that she does not want him “suffering.” She also added that her husband’s “arrest has taken an emotional and financial toll” on her family, according to the outlet.

One person, Jaya Ramji-Nogales, who works as an immigration law professor at Temple University, expressed that “a lot” of illegal migrants were choosing to self-deport. Ramji-Nogales also noted that “there are a lot of hoops to jump through” even when migrants opt to voluntarily self-deport.

Breitbart News reported in March 2025 that people were reporting an increasing number of illegal aliens smuggling themselves out of the country. One person, journalist Alfredo Corchado, told an “audience at the Council on Foreign Relations” that illegal aliens were being offered “packages” to be smuggled out of the U.S.:

[Coyotes] are now offering packages where [migrant] people can go back home …. [If] you want to go home, or you want to go back to Honduras, or maybe you don’t want to go back to Honduras because it’s too dangerous. [Or] you don’t want to go to Guatemala, but maybe you want to go to Costa Rica, and so they’re offering these [smuggling] packages where you can just go back home. Not all of them are taking it, I mean, many [are].

Breitbart News also reported in June 2025 that The Atlantic reported roughly 3,000 migrants had self-deported, though the number “is likely far higher” because a lot of illegal aliens were “quietly moving back into Mexico.”